330°

EA Staffer Not Liking EA's New Restrictive DRM

Current editor-in-chief of EA.com Jeff Green, who has a long history with the Ziff-Davis publishing company, is making it public that he's not a fan of the new DRM scheme that EA has chosen to protect Command & Conquer 4.

Green, an employee of Electronic Arts, made it known through is Twitter stream that he's experiencing a problem with playing through C&C4 not because of a problem with the master server
(as is the case with Ubisoft's customer woes) but because of a less-than-reliable DSL connection at home.

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tomshardware.com
t8505234d ago

Hopefully such comments and bad sales will make these developers learn the hard way.

champ215234d ago

lol both AC2 and C&C are off steams tops sellers list, they just rolled out. I guess both the games were not well received.

Aphe5234d ago

While piracy is an issue obviously, the way they're going about it with this DRM business now is just over the top. I remember when Valve first bought in its internet activation and I was pretty annoyed about that at the time because I barely had the cash to pay to have internet at home.

But at least it was just a one time thing, once it was done you didn't have to worry about being online. This is something else entirely and I'm worried how far this is going to go. If it's successful a lot of other companies may go the same way.

steve30x5234d ago

Im sure it wont be succesful because I see a lot of outcry over this DRM and a lot of people wont buy the games with this DRM. Also on the Ubisoft forum there is a whole lot of people who cant play Settlers 7 because the DRM is telling them that they arent connected to the internet when their internet is working perfectly.

fcpthebest5234d ago

I just cannot believe people bought these games :$

PC gaming is getting worse. I have a pc and atm I just refuse to pay for games that have drm. The only game that I payed for was mount and blade.

thehitman5234d ago

Product keys?? Blizzard has product keys so that only 1 purchase can be played on the net at a time and cant even install it w/o a vaild 1, so even if you pirate the game all you can do is the campaign mode which isnt much.

BannedForNineYears5234d ago

Derrrrp, any game you pirate you can only play Single Player, unless of course you play on cracked servers.
As for needing a serial, that's what keygens/cracked .dll files are for.
Not that I would know or anything. >_>

palaeomerus5234d ago

I think presuming your customers will have perfect or even reliable internet is kind of stupid.

A friend of mine recently bought Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition and I came over to play it coop with him, specifically the two new mini-campaigns.

It turned out to be plain old Resident Evil 5 in a different box with a card letting you download the DLC from Xboxlive and that DLC turned out to be over a 1GB.

So my friend thought he was getting a better version of the game with all the DLC included ON DISC so he wouldn't have to do all of that, and he had to make an Xbox live silver account AND the crap took forever to download which ruined the whole point of me coming over.

So if I buy Gears of War 2: Game of the year edition is that going to work the same way? Is it the same old product and a download code on a card? If so it's hardly worth buying again is it? It would make more sense to just buy or ignore he DLC and stick with my old copy. the whole point of a deluxe edition is to have the new stuff on hand on a disc that will work without the internet or downloads (which will eventually go away as the game ages).

Publishers really need to make it so that their game will work out of the box without an internet connection or else NOTICEABLY mark the exterior of the product as being 'next to useless' without an internet connection or else they risk severely disappointing and angering a pretty large group of their customers.

kraze075233d ago

The DRM was the reason I didn't buy C&C4.

90°

Do We look At Video Game Soundtracks As A Whole Or As Background Noise? Part 4 (GamerLive.TV)

Timothy Michael Wynn has scored music in the video game industry since 2005. He has worked on known game franchises like Command & Conquer, Warhawk and Red Fraction. You might have heard his work on CW’s Supernatural. His best work was in Warhawk as gave its vibrant atmosphere that suit it’s military theme. It’s Wynn’s behind the scenes work that helped make the game stand out from the rest, but do fans notice? Do people look at soundtracks as a whole or as background noise?

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gamerlive.tv
joab7774410d ago

They may only get appreciation from a small group of gamers, but their importance is imperative. They can save a game, make a great game epic or leave good game feeling undone. While I have never personally listened to soundtracks on their own, I know the soundtracks of my favorite games very well and often hear it it my sleep or throughout the day. It's similar to the nostalgic feeling that songs conjure up years later. If I hear a track I spent countless hours of my life listening to, I am immediately transported back to that time.

WeskerChildReborned4410d ago

Some games have good music but others i can care less for.

lsujester4409d ago

It really depends. Much of it is just there to enhance the scene, slow for sad, fast for excitment, whatever, and you never really get to hear it. But the truly memorable songs really do something for a game. The Halo theme is very recognizable, and the song that's playing as you go into into Mexico in RDR works wonderfully.

gcolley4409d ago

i turn the music off. i prefer realism to cinematics.

110°

Fanboy Loyalty or Cowardice?

When Splinter Cell Conviction was released and the premise altered with modernisation, fans of the series were outraged and were more than happy to voice their disdain. Since then, many other titles have come under fire for stepping away from the norm.

GamingLives writes: "Only in the games industry do people truly believe that they deserve something for free, something to be a specific way or specific quality and length. I believe that, because we pay £39.99+ for a game, we expect higher standards of entertainment and quality for every pound. This can be understandable, as nobody wants to pay a high premium for something that sucks, but does this give us the right to become armchair game designers?"

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gaminglives.com
Dante1124467d ago (Edited 4467d ago )

Tough call. I do think developers should have the freedom to bring new elements within a game's franchise but if it hinders the core aspects of the game, I think fans should have the right to complain about it.

NYC_Gamer4467d ago (Edited 4467d ago )

Its not really wrong for fans to get upset over unwanted changes to a franchise that they enjoy....most studios do all of that with purpose of greed and trying to expand the audience/profit....

vortis4467d ago

Yeah...

Gamers made the industry what it is (core gamers by the way) because we dumped a lot of money into someone else's effort.

Before this gen gamers nary said a word that stirred the pot. The internet has been in existence since before AOL and bulletin boards and user groups have been around for ages. If gamers were displeased there were outlets to make it known.

But back then video games were designed by passionate people and gamers were enthralled with what these guys had to offer us. We willing forked over cash even if we didn't have trailers, screenshots and $100 million dollar marketing campaigns.

It's the opposite nowadays...franchises we grew up to love are being neutered for "higher sales margins" and gameplay has become standardized to attract "mainstream casual audiences". It's not even about gaming anymore, that's why REAL GAMERS are pissed.

How often do you hear core gamers complaining about Limbo? Dust Force? Bastion? MineCraft?

Yeah, exactly.

TekoIie4467d ago (Edited 4467d ago )

"Gamers made the industry what it is (core gamers by the way) because we dumped a lot of money into someone else's effort".

VERY true. But at the same time that doesnt really give us the right to dictate what devs do with their product (to an extent). If i may give an example recently in the news:

Mass effect 3 (you knew i was going there). We have the right to complain (because we have a legitimate reason). Although i dont believe we have the right to make our own ending. If we have complete control over what devs do then i think we lose the people who are really putting an emphasis on creativity and innovation in the industry.

When the controversy started over ME3 i was surprised that people felt the entire game was worthless because of a disappointing ending. We pretty much said "10mins of this game sucks and because of that the entire game is worth less than my dogs shit". This is where we sort of lose our credibility when we complain. We go TOO far with our anger...

vortis4467d ago

I agree.

I think that the focus should have been on pressuring BioWare to just stick to making an ending THEY felt was befitting for the conclusion of Shepard's galactic journey. We all know they were pressured and there's no way they would have really concluded the ending the way they did if they had more time.

Some gamers are understanding of this, but yes, I do acknowledge that there were a lot of other (rightfully) butthurt gamers who took it to a level where it didn't need to go.

I think there still needs to a fine balance of respect on both ends, because we'll always support good franchises like faithful fanboys should, but it doesn't mean we have to deal with $1,000 worth of DLC, stripped content and rushed products just to try to get the "complete" experience.

If gaming media did more to work as a ventilation shaft for our "gamer rage" then I don't think the vitriol would have been all that bad. But since gaming media took the pro-corporate route it left a lot of gamers to rage like they never raged before.

CaptCalvin4467d ago (Edited 4467d ago )

They're only going under fire for stepping INTO the "norm," by ripping off CoD.

RockmanII74467d ago

"Only in the games industry do people truly believe that they deserve something for free."

I take it you never go to Youtube the week after a major site update, every video is full of people saying "thumbs up if you liked the old layout" and stuff like that.

"What gives you the right to display such arrogance to claim that Conviction is not a proper Splinter Cell game?"

Because the things that made Splinter Cell great are no longer there. The game was too easy and took the focus away from stealth gameplay to the point where it would have more sense to make it a new IP than a new Splinter Cell installment. Any game where you say it would have been better as a new IP than a sequel doesn't deserve to be a sequel.

150°

3 New EA Game Bundles on Sale at Amazon including 77% off EA's 19 Game Bundle

Amazon have launched 3 new video game bundles including a new 19 games EA pack for $89.99.

That's a saving of $299.84 off 19 EA titles. Games included are Alice Madness Returns, Battleforge, Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4, Command and Conquer 3, Command and Conquer 3 Uprising, Crysis 2, Crysis Warhead, Crysis, Darkspore, Deadspace 2, Deadspace, Dragonage 2, Dragonage Origins, Mass Effect 2, Medal of Honor, Mirrors Edge and Saboteur.

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